Utah Representative Mike Petersen was inspired to introduce the new law after receiving a call from his daughter, a master’s student in social work in Louisiana. He was disturbed that a professor had asked the class to write a letter to a local attorney in favor of LGBTQ rights.
“He said … he said, ‘Dad, I’ve just been told that I have to write a letter to my legislator representing some policies that I don’t agree with,'” Peterson said. He did not express his concern to the pastor “because he was afraid.”
Petersen has since sponsored a bill, passed by the Utah Legislature this month, that would allow students in the state to opt out of other courses that conflict with their beliefs. The law now awaits the governor’s signature.
The bill creates a process by which students at Utah’s community colleges and universities can request to waive upcoming assignments for a mandatory class or major requirement that conflicts with “sincere belief of religion or conscience.” For example, a student may request in advance to opt out of viewing a sexually explicit film required of a course syllabus. A professor who rejects a student’s request will have to explain the decision to a “neutral arbitrator” provided by the university, according to the bill. That person will evaluate whether making the assignment—or otherwise reducing it—counts as a “fundamental change” in the learning objectives of the class.
The bill also says professors cannot “force a student to take or speak about a particular position,” such as requiring them to write to an attorney or publish an article supporting a particular point of view.
The bill leaves it up to the Utah Board of Higher Education to come up with specific guidance on how these policies should be implemented and requires the board to report to the Legislature on how implementation is working.
The legislation would be the first of its kind to extend conscientious objection to higher education, though Petersen sees the bill as an extension of an earlier law he promoted in 2024 that allows state employees to opt out of jobs they object to on moral grounds. He emphasized that the Constitution of the state of Utah includes the principle that “the rights of conscience shall never be violated.”
“I think we should fulfill that promise,” he said.
Academic Freedom Concerns
Laura Benitez, country manager of America’s free speech programs at PEN America, a free speech organization, worries that the law could force professors to change the assignments they give to their students, out of fear of research scrutiny by university leaders and state lawmakers. He also argued that the bill escapes the authority of professors to decide what materials and activities they use to teach based on their knowledge.
“We consider this bill to be a violation of academic freedom. It has serious, significant consequences for professors’ ability to make decisions about what they can teach and provide in the classroom,” said Benitez. “A professor’s choices about how to achieve academic learning outcomes are part of what academic freedom is.”
Robin Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who helped craft and introduce the bill, said he believes academic freedom should be “balanced” by the needs of students who are “stuck” in the course—and if that makes faculty rethink certain assignments, so be it. He compared conscientious objectors to students with post-traumatic stress disorder who may want something else instead of violent things.
As a teacher, “I think it’s okay to be tested sometimes,” she said. “This is a way for faculty to pause and look at what their students’ experience might be.”
He also believes that legislation can prevent the conflict of course materials from exploding. He cited a recent incident at Texas A&M University, where a student filmed an argument with a professor about course material related to gender identity, which led to the firing of the professor and two administrators. Wilson argued that a civil war—or a student who suffers in silence from behavior—is less likely if there is a process in place to handle these types of student objections.
“You’re going to have parties that fix things” because “they’re going to have someone in the room who can lower the temperature of that conversation”—a neutral mediator, he said. “We don’t need that in the press.”
‘Failure’ or Protection?
Critics of the bill also worry that students may opt out of learning and activities that will engage them with other ideas in a way that could affect their education.
Students benefit from “assignments that really require you to engage in critical thinking and grapple with ideas and perspectives that differ from your own—and sometimes involve putting yourself in the shoes of someone you disagree with,” Benitez said. “Depriving the professor of the power to put students in that situation [is] contempt” and “the betrayal and mistrust of the students … the ability to deal with the things they will face in the world.”
Petersen believes that the provision that the accommodation will not be a “fundamental change” in the course will prevent students from opting out of activities that would benefit them. Universities have veto power.
“You can’t say, ‘I’m going to be a meteorologist, but I don’t want to take a class on climate change,’ or ‘I’m going to study nursing, but I don’t want to learn how to shoot because I’m an antivaxxer,'” she said. “That doesn’t work.” In the same way, “I don’t think that studying evolution will violate one’s conscience.”
But in some cases, there is more than “one way for a student to learn information, and maybe we can be more creative, think a little bit about that,” he added.
Charles Russo, the Joseph Panzer Chair of Education and a law professor at the University of Dayton, said he disagrees with the bill and doesn’t think it should become law because it limits the ability to control faculty and is not specific enough about practical applications or other assignments. Still, he believes it raises some concerns.
“I think it violates academic freedom, but I think it’s a reaction,” Russo said. “In general, it would be an open mind to try to find a child who would not agree to write these kinds of assignments, and I would like to find some balance there. I think teachers should be sensitive to the beliefs of their students … Respect needs to go both ways.”
He would prefer that state lawmakers stay out of it and stressed that, especially in law school, assignments that force students to engage with multiple sides of an issue are important. But he hopes colleges and universities are having internal discussions about how to accommodate students’ conscientious objection to academic work.
“I think that authorizing a student to write a paper that does not agree with his deep religious beliefs, could be a problem,” he said. “I’m not saying to give up the assignment, but maybe I’ll bring another assignment for people who have such strong feelings,” as long as the exception is “in accordance with the spirit, the goal.”
Broad Impact
The bill gives a broad definition of conscience: “an honest belief about the rightness or wrongness of an act or omission.”
That means the law goes beyond religious beliefs—which was not the intention, Wilson noted. He believes that law can allow for a variety of objections, including political, philosophical and other ideological concerns about academic work.
“You allow everybody—believers, non-believers … to say, ‘Wait a minute, I have a moral center, and my moral center is important to me,'” she said.
Russo said, obviously, a pacifist would argue that he doesn’t want to do an assignment that focuses on studying war. He believes that the appeal is unlikely to succeed if it is challenged in court, but raises questions about how this bill can be used.
Despite its scope, Petersen foresees this law as having “very little impact” on public universities, because it can eliminate frivolous applications; in any case, only a “handful” of professors are likely to face these problems with their students, he said.
But Benitez believes the bill could have far-reaching consequences.
He acknowledged that there are ways to implement the bill that “wouldn’t be a disaster”; for example, a law professor may ask a student to write an argument on a less personal or more serious topic if he conscientiously declines the first assignment. But in a tense political climate where higher ed leaders are already under pressure to “extremely conform” to the rules and regulations of policymakers, he fears the bill’s effects “will go further than the bill’s text.” And while the law would protect all forms of ideological opposition, he believes that in doing so “it will be used to target certain viewpoints,” such as content related to LGBTQ+ issues, “which we ultimately consider censorship.”
He noted that while student withdrawal is a new concept in higher ed, it has been a controversial issue in K–12 schools. Notably, the US Supreme Court last year sided with religious families seeking to exclude their children from learning about LGBTQ+ themes in Mahmoud et al. v. Taylor.
He worries that Utah’s bill, which he expects the governor to sign, could set a precedent for other states, given how widespread the controversy has become in the K-12 sector.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen this kind of measure, but we’ve seen with every kind of research we’ve followed since 2021 that it can start in one state, but it will be copied in another state,” he said.
